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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Softbank smartphone trade-in program will unlock iPhones

Posted by
SBS

Part of the promotion for the upcoming iPhone 5 release is the announcement of a trade-in program for Softbank phones that are in good condition. These phones will be unlocked and sold overseas. This includes all iPhones, the Dell Streak, and all variants of theHTC Desire.

Softbank has obtained the permission of Apple to unlock the iPhones.

Um... maybe it's just us here, but this kind of stinks a bit. Here is Apple and softbank refusing to unlock the iPhones of loyal customers so that they may freely use them as the wish - be it with a domestic or overseas carrier - then turn around and unlock them so that you can sell them overseas (most likely in a re-locked state). Foreign markets will bear a price that the domestic market will not.

Not unlocking a subsidized phone is understandable, but refusing to unlock something that is fully paid for would be inexcusable. In fairness, Softbank has indeed subsidized these phones with the monthly discounts, and it appears that some of the phones are being bought back at a higher price than what was paid by the customer.

22 comments:

I really don't understand the logic in this. I've been an SBM customer since they released the 3GS and have been upgrading my iPhone yearly, to the newest model, since then.What I do with my old phone is I ship them back home so that my relatives can use them.It would really be great, and fair IMHO, if they would offer this unlock service to their "loyal" customers. But until they do(hoping they do someday), I guess we are restricted to just being content with JB-ing our phones and unlocking them to local carriers.

Cheers, I received a text from Sb today and thought it was interesting to change my 4s, from what I could understand I will pay less than ¥4000/month, during 1 year or more... Kaetoku plan or something like that

What a load of BS, and you know it. The phones are not subsidised, they simply fudge the numbers to make it look like you are making a saving.

Refusing to unlock a phone for which a contract has ended and the phone has been paid off in full is just wrong - I cancelled my contract with SB and will not use them again as long as this policy is in place.

Back around 2007 or so, the MIC put in a new guideline saying that carriers were no longer allowed to mix service fees and handset prices. This for a while ended the 0-yen keitai.

Basically, they gave it to you for free then you paid higher voice service fees. You paid the higher service fees regardless of whether you continued to use the same old phone or continually bought new ones. The cost of upgrades for frequent buyers of phones was subsidized by people who used the same one for a few years.

Not anymore.

They do fudge numbers on the price for voice service still - no way that a standard plan really costs nearly 2000 yen.

But if you buy an iPhone for only 10,000 yen, that is about 4 to 5 man less than full retail. Apple gets their wholesale price from SBM - whatever that amounts to. The difference is covered by SBM, since you only paid 10,000 and SBM can't roll that excess into service fees since 2007.

Complete BS. SBM is plain greedy and evil. Hope they fail miserably overseas because this kind of practices only works in Japan. Consumers got no voice here and are continually getting raped by companies like SB.

I know I'm a bit late to the conversation but I have a IPhone 4 IMEI 01 275500 446917 2, it's an old SoftBank phone, now I live in the US any advice on using a carrier here? Email me at ilovelotalot@gmail.com thanks!

They use a different carrier, not Softbank.Since Softbank does not unlock phones, even after the 24-month contract, I used other means of unlocking my phones to other carriers.

However, starting iPhone 5(LTE models), aside from factory unlocks(proper way of unlocking a locked device), no other unlock method is fully functional. Usually, the LTE will not be supported. So I just decided to sell old devices to mitigate the cost of upgrading to a new model.

Ok thanks, yeah I was just wondering if it was done the right way or not. Might have to find other means of unlocking 2 that I have, unless they have changed it which I doubt. The ones i have iphone 4s

Oh. Well 4S is the easiest. I don't know if I'm allowed to say it here but, back when I had a 4S, I used a hardware unlock from Gevey.

>unless they have changed it which I doubtSupposedly, according to this same blog, starting sometime next year, all phones sold in Japan needs to be unlocked by law. Link is below.http://www.japanmobiletech.com/2014/07/an-alternate-view-on-effects-of.html